


Lean On Me

by Rookblonkorules



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Akabane Karma-centric, Angst, Established Irina/Karasuma, Gen, Hurt Akabane Karma, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Parental Karasuma Tadaomi, Post-Canon, Protective Karasuma Tadaomi, Recovery, Teacher-Student Relationship, Torture, Unnamed Villains for Plot purposes, Vague political stuff, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rookblonkorules/pseuds/Rookblonkorules
Summary: Post-series. Karasuma rescues Karma after he has been held hostage for several days.
Relationships: Akabane Karma & Karasuma Tadaomi, Irina Jelavić/Karasuma Tadaomi
Comments: 19
Kudos: 56





	Lean On Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowflight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflight/gifts).



> Back with another Assassination Classroom fic, yay!  
> And it's more Karma whump, double yay! With a side helping of protective/parental Karasuma. And a dash of Karasuma/Irina, because, despite what my only other work in this fandom that features her might have you think, I don't actually hate her- quite the contrary to be honest- and grew quite fond of her relationship with Karasuma. ;-;  
> Okay, okay, so... I have literally been wasting all of my braincells on my classes, so if this is not up to snuff/not as good as my last one/things don't make sense, I'm sorry, I tried. *cries*  
> Anyways, I'm kind of fascinated with the idea of post-canon- and the idea of Karma going into politics (even though I hate politics ;-;) and so this came about.  
> This fic is gifted to snowflight, who has been incredibly supportive and inspirational and who also wrote an absolutely incredible revamped civil war arc, with a heavy focus on Kayano and Karma's dynamic and it is seriously wonderful and absolutely worth the read.  
> Also, for any readers who may have also read Vulnerability, my last work in this fandom, there is now a work by tatsue akashiro (smol_demon_giyuu) inspired by it and it is amazing, please go read it and give the author some love. They are amazing!

It had been like this for several days, as far as Karma could tell.

They hadn’t exactly given him access to any sort of window or clock he could use to gauge the passage of time.

His arms were twisted behind his back, wrists cuffed together. Likewise, his ankles were cuffed to each leg of the chair he was seated on.

He’d been allowed away from the chair maybe twice for the bathroom. Even then, the cuffs had stayed on and he’d been heavily guarded.

It was almost flattering, but he was starting to wish they wouldn’t take him quite so seriously. 

It was near impossible to attempt an escape when someone was scrutinizing your every move.

Karma couldn’t see the guard stationed with the bag over his head, but if he listened hard enough, he could hear them when they shuffled across the floor. 

As far as he could tell, they were interested in information on a political deal in the works with the United States.

Too bad for them, even with the amount of influence he had already garnered, Karma still hadn’t risen high enough in the ranks to be privy to half the details they were looking for.

They hadn’t been all that amused. They had been even less amused when Karma had grinned at them and spat in their faces.

Things had been… rough after that. 

Now, he had the hood over his head, a gag in his mouth and they had left him alone to stew along with his new bruises and possibly a few broken ribs. That he was still guarded told him that they still thought they had use for him, that they didn’t intend to just leave him here to die.

Maybe the guard was just here to see what killed him first: the boredom or starvation.

Rationally, Karma told himself he hadn’t been left alone for long enough for him to start thinking about whether or not they actually intended to let him die, but it turned out that your thoughts turned morbid really quickly after days in captivity.

At this point, he really would have just preferred a bullet to the skull. It would be far quicker than whatever...  _ this _ was supposed to be. At the very least, it would end the suspense and the tedium of  _ not knowing _ , but, as of yet, his captors had not shown themselves to be merciful.

* * *

Karasuma was unused to being sought out for rescue missions. He was an assassin. Or he had been.

He’d killed people for a living. He didn’t save them. 

In fact, it was the very antithesis of his particular brand of talents.

So when the job somehow found its way to his desk… somehow, he was fully prepared to send it back.

On a whim, he had opened it. 

He wasn’t going to take it, but he might as well see what they were asking of him before turning them down. 

That changed the moment he realized just who they were asking him to rescue.

Akabane Karma. 

A name that was getting more and more recognition on the political stage as his former student stepped on more and more toes and rose higher and higher in the ranks, an impressive feat for a young man who hadn’t yet reached twenty-three.

A young man who had been kidnapped just under a week ago, according to the information provided to him in the file. 

He crumbled it in his hand, grinding his teeth.

Four days. 

Karma had been a hostage for four days and he was only just hearing of it now?

If it had been four days already, then there was no guarantee that he was even still alive. Karasuma could very well be going in to rescue a corpse.

How had he only just heard about this?

It wasn’t like he kept any serious tabs on his previous students, but he did check in on them from time to time.

He should have heard something. Shouldn’t he?

“Tadaomi?” His wife stepped into his study, two glasses of champagne in her hands. She set one down beside him, resting her hand on the bulge beneath her nightdress that’s just barely begun to show. 

The sight of her brought a lump to his throat. Her presence- and that of the child she bore- was a reminder of why he had chosen to leave that life behind. 

Why they both had. 

“Is something wrong?” She sat next to him and placed her small, fine-boned hand over his. It was hard to imagine that those hands had ever killed anyone, yet he knew they had. “What’s this?” Before he could protest, she took the folder from him, chiding him as she did so. “Whatever it is, I can look, Tadaomi. I’ve seen worse.” She opened it, taking a moment to look over its contents. “Karma?” She raised her head. There was a trace of alarm present in her eyes, but she was remarkably composed. Or at least she looked a hell of a lot more composed than Karasuma felt he himself ought to be. 

He nodded crisply, in a way to disguise the unease he felt deep inside.

“You’re going, aren’t you?” Her eyes narrow and he knows she won’t accept ‘no’ for an answer. He realized, when he saw her eyes, that that was never an answer he had even considered giving her anyways. 

“Yes,” he said and he pushed his chair back from the desk, standing up. “And Irina?” His stomach clenched when he looked at her. “I’m coming back alive. Both of us are,” he amended, after a moment’s consideration. 

She blinked at him. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.” She stood, grabbing him by his neck tie and pulling him down for a kiss. It was all he could do not to melt into her. Her kisses never failed to warm him from the inside, filling him with fire. It was no surprise, considering her training. 

Reluctantly, he pulled himself away from her. His hands drifted down, catching hers before they could fall away completely. 

Irina met his eyes, shining with her own particular brand of ferocity. “Kick some ass, Tadaomi.”

* * *

It turned out they had already narrowed down the general area where Karma was being held to two specific locations.

They just wanted Karasuma to complete the extraction. 

_ Extraction. _

That’s what they were calling it. 

Those bastards.

They couldn’t even confirm whether or not Karma was still alive, though they must have had good reason to suppose he still was if they were sending in an  _ extraction  _ for him.

They could call it whatever they liked, but Karasuma was going in to rescue his student.

It was funny. 

Karasuma had never before cared how heartless one’s vocabulary sounded beforehand. 

Cold-bloodedness was just something that came with the job. It had never made him blink before this.

Those kids… Korosensei… Irina… and now his own unborn child… they’d all joined forces with one another and made him soft. 

“Couldn’t even be bothered to narrow it down to one,” he muttered to himself. It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in himself, but the time he wasted on a wrong choice was time the kidnappers could be wasting the kid. 

That was an unacceptable outcome and he had no intentions of allowing it to come about. 

Along that same vein of thinking, however, time wasted in indecision was still time wasted.

It would be a gamble either way. He had to make his choice.

So he did, which was how he found himself in his current predicament.

Karasuma pressed himself flat against the wall to avoid being seen. 

He caught snatches of a conversation every now and then. There were at least three guards and, so far, not one of them had mentioned Karma.

Still, their presence reassured him that he had chosen the right place. Why bother guarding an empty building? Something was here and Karasuma was more than certain that that something was Karma.

If they were still here too then that meant Karma was still alive. Why bother guarding a corpse?

There was a gun strapped to his thigh, several knives hidden on his person. His fingers itched, but he left the weapons untouched, backing away.

With only three of them, he was almost certain he could take them out before anyone else was any the wiser, but there was a chance that he couldn’t, but he also couldn’t leave them wandering freely.

There would be no telling what shape Karma would be in when he finally found him. For all he knew, he would be carrying him out of this building, though he dearly hoped it wouldn’t come to this.

If that were the case, though, a fight would be the last thing either of them needed on the way out. 

Best to get the obstacles out of the way now. 

Normally, he wouldn’t be running blind. Normally, he would have been briefed on things like the building’s layout or the guards’ routes. 

Normally, he wouldn’t be rescuing 

This was about as far from normal for him as things could get. 

It was a chance he would have to take.

He crouched low and waited for a chance to strike. 

* * *

The inability to move was maddening. 

Karma had already developed cramps in his thighs. His wrists and ankles were likely rubbed raw with just how hard he had been struggling to get free.

He was exacerbating the injuries he already had. He knew that and, yet, he couldn’t stop himself. 

He had to try. 

Karma’s fingers twitched behind his back, but he couldn’t do much else beyond scream his frustrations into the gag. 

Which he does.

With vigor.

Unsurprisingly, it did nothing for him, but it left him wheezing, nearly suffocated by the bag over his head, as he jarred the ribs he now knew for certain were broken.

No one had said so much as a word to him, no one had touched them. 

Karma knew that this was just another form of wearing him down, of breaking him. 

The problem was, he was afraid it might actually start to work. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. 

The hood was ripped off his head before Karma even realized there was someone next to him. He blinked several times, vision struggling to adjust after so long spent being unable to see  _ anything. _

Something was waved in front of his face. It took him a moment to process that it was a bottle of water. 

He hadn’t realized just how thirsty he was until faced with an opportunity to quench said thirst.

“You want it, huh?”

He did. He wanted it so, so badly. 

He unscrewed the cap and held it out to him, like he was offering a toast… and then he poured it out on the floor, tossing the last bit in Karma’s face. 

“Oops.” He grinned, flicking the bottle away from him lazily. Karma heard it clatter as it bounced off the wall and hit the floor. “My bad.”

When it finally rolled to a stop, Karma’s eyes were still glued to it. 

A split second later, a punch had his head snapping back and him seeing stars. The second followed before he could regain his bearings. This time, he felt something  _ crunch _ and pain  _ exploded.  _ His nose, he realized, as the blood ran down his face.

He choked behind the gag.

The man cracked his knuckles before him, tilted his head and grinned. He was surprisingly well-dressed and well-groomed for a torturer, maintaining a refined air even with Karma’s blood still staining his knuckles. 

Since he hadn’t removed the gag, Karma could only assume it wasn’t information he was after this time. He’d left Karma with no way to give it to him. 

The man grabbed the back of his chair and pulled him forward so that the only thing keeping Karma from falling flat on his face was his grip on the chair’s back. 

“So I guess you weren’t lying,” he said, inches away from Karma’s face. “More’s the pity, but... I guess that means,” and he shoved Karma’s chair, sending it toppling backwards, “all the more fun for me.”

Karma hit the ground, the back of his skull bouncing off the ground and the air flattening from his lungs. 

He lay there, eyes wide, as pain gnawed at his insides, and struggled to find his breath. 

Lying on the floor there… he understood something. 

There would be no bullet in the head. This was it, he was going to die, but it wouldn’t be quick. 

He jerked at his restraints, sending sparks of pain through his already rubbed raw wrists. With the way he had fallen, the entirety of his weight was pressing the chair down into his arm. 

He grunted, biting deeper into the gag, and trying to ride out the pain when a pair of black slacks entered into his field of vision. 

Karma stared at them a moment, before they shifted position and the man was now crouching down in front of him. He gripped him by the chin, turning his head to face him. 

Karma grimaced as his neck was twisted uncomfortably.

“You know,” the man said slowly, “we went to a lot of trouble to obtain you. And for what? You know  _ nothing!” _ He released Karma’s face with a disgusted snort. His temple cracked off the ground. “Do you have any idea how  _ frustrating  _ that is?”

Karma closed his eyes, trying to ignore the awful pounding in his head.

The man got up and paced around him. When he was mid-loop the second time around, he crouched back down, this time leaning on the chair Karma was bound to and subtly, bit by bit, adding more weight to the burden atop his pinned arm. 

Karma moaned, letting his head fall back to the floor and his eyes slide shut.

“Though I say I’m free to take my time with you, Akabane.”

* * *

Karasuma advanced slowly.

The three guards were lying unconscious just outside, bound with their own neckties and gagged with their own socks. 

He’d wasted precious time on them, but better to have them out of the way than to have to worry about them later. 

If he’d had Irina here with him… But, no, that wasn’t even something he would consider. Not now. She and their child were safe at home where they should be.

He stopped. 

A new voice, only a low murmur at this stage because of distance, reached his ears.

He pressed himself back, hand sliding to his gun. He withdrew it, clicking the safety back, and advancing. Around the corner of a crate, moving slowly so he wouldn’t be seen. 

There, in the center of the room, a dark-suited figure stalked in circles around something on the floor.

And on the floor-

Karasuma’s breath caught. 

Cuffed to a chair, Karma wasn’t moving. 

The man spun lazily on his heel, drawing back his other foot for a kick.

Karasuma took aim and fired. 

* * *

When the gunshot rang out, Karma flinched instinctively, but didn’t immediately register what the new sound had meant. 

There was no new pain. The shot hadn’t struck him. 

He peeled his eyes open. 

The man lay on his side on the ground in front of him, eyes wide open and yet unseeing. Blood trickled from the hole blown between his eyes and pooled beneath him on the floor. 

Karma inhaled sharply, unable to tear his eyes away from the macabre sight. 

When a new hand landed on his shoulder, Karma jerked, ducking his head in an attempt to shield himself from the worst of the blow that was sure to come. 

The hand pulled away and a moment later, a vaguely familiar voice was saying, “This is going to hurt.”

Except no strike followed that statement so it didn’t make much sense. Instead, the chair moved, being shifted upright and lifting the weight off of his pinned arm. The sudden change in position had Karma’s head spinning, nausea making his stomach turn.

He couldn’t throw up. Not with the gag in place. Doing so would only cause him to suffocate. 

Hands tugged at the knot at the back of his head. 

“I’ll get this off of you.”

Karma froze, heart thumping in his chest.

_ Karasuma-sensei? _

What was Karasuma-sensei doing here? How had he even known where to find him? How had even known Karma needed to be found?   
The knot came loose and the gag fell away. 

With effort, Karma unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth, running it over his lips.

“Kara-” He coughed. His voice was raspy from disuse. “Karasuma-sensei?”

“Don’t talk,” Karasuma-sensei said and his normally gruff tone was surprisingly gentle. “I got the key from them. I’ll have you out of these quickly.” 

His rough, calloused palms brushed against Karma’s skin as he worked on the cuffs. Then, with a clank, the metal fell away from his wrists. After having been kept so long in one position, his arms hurt when he pulled them back around. 

His shoulder twanged in protest and he grimaced, rubbing his wrists where the cuffs had cut deep grooves into his skin, leaving it bloody and inflamed. The rush of blood back to his fingers left them tingling painfully. 

Karasuma-sensei moved around to the front and Karma held still while he bent down to work at the cuffs around his ankles.

Questions were burning in the back of his mind but he didn’t vocalize them just yet. The back of his throat, his tongue, they felt far too dry. 

The cuffs fell away, one at a time. 

“Don’t stand,” Karasuma cautioned him- even though at this point, after so long being seated and unable to move, Karma wasn’t even sure that he  _ could, _ not that he was going to admit it- and turned away.

At first, Karma wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing when he saw Karasuma-sensei reach for the corpse- until it dawned on him that he was removing the shoes. 

“It’s macabre, I know,” he turned back around, shoes in hand and placed them on the ground in front of him, “but you look to be around the same size, give or take, and it’s better than having you go barefoot.”

Karma was too tired to contemplate wearing a dead man’s shoes, so he just nodded and said nothing as Karasuma-sensei helped him get them on. He didn’t react beyond the reflexive twitch when Karasuma-sensei accidentally rubbed against the ring of tender flesh around his ankle.

The reaction had been small, but Karasuma-sensei still noticed and his lips dipped downward. “Sorry,” he said, even though it wasn’t his fault and apologizing for it was stupid. 

Karma’s lips moved, but no sound immediately came out. He coughed, clearing his throat, and cringed when the action sent a stabbing pain through his side.

Right. Ribs. 

Best not to agitate them right now.

“Sure would have been nice to have had the foresight to bring water,” Karasuma-sensei reproached himself out loud, rising to his feet. “They hurt your ribs?”

He slid an arm carefully around Karma’s back, looping Karma’s own arm over his shoulders. 

Slowly, with Karasuma-sensei supporting a good chunk of his weight so as not to jostle his ribs further, Karma managed to get to his feet. 

“Come on,” Karasuma said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

* * *

It was after he’d got the kid back and to a hospital that Karasuma learned the full story. 

Turned out the “official” request for his assistance hadn’t actually been that official. Karasuma hadn’t been sent alone on a rescue mission because they trusted his capabilities.

The government had left Karma high and dry. The extent of Karma’s knowledge wasn’t enough to threaten them, or so they felt, and so they hadn’t cared one way or another. 

He thought back to the state he had found the kid in, bound and beaten and the idea of him left in that place for any longer, the idea of him  _ dying  _ in that place, left his blood boiling. 

His fingers curled into a fist down by his side and his pace became brisker. 

Karma wasn’t currently allowed visitors. 

He made his way to the end of the hall and dropped himself wearily into one of the chairs provided for visitors.

_ Now  _ apparently they gave a damn. Now that the kid is safe and out of enemy hands. 

Karasuma himself had already been briefed. 

No, he was unaware of the identity of whoever had requested his assistance. Did it matter?   
Yes, he was responsible for the dead body present at the scene. 

Yes. Yes. No. Yes. No. 

Hadn’t he left three very much alive individuals they could be questioning at this moment instead?   
They were working on it.

All in all, he was certain it was a special kind of shitshow behind the scenes as strings were pulled and things were brushed back under the rug. 

This on top of Irina’s pregnancy...

Once he had seen that document, there was no way he would have just left the kid in that place, but still, this all couldn’t have picked a worse time to occur. 

Karasuma sighed heavily, leaning forward and clasping his hands.

He needed to call her. 

* * *

It was still several hours before he found himself allowed to see Karma. 

In that time, Karasuma had talked to Irina several times, but he hadn’t left. 

Karma was safe, yes. Karasuma didn’t doubt that, but after learning what he had… he wanted there to be someone who actually cared to meet the kid when he was finally permitted to be seen. 

He stopped just outside the door, rapping once as a courtesy to announce his presence before entering. 

“You look considerably better than when I last saw you,” he remarked, stepping inside. 

He noted the IV line, the bruises, the bandages, but at least Karma was awake and alert. At least he was  _ alive.  _

“That’s funny,” Karma said drily, “because I still feel like shit.”

“Too bad.” Karasuma dragged the solitary chair away from the wall and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. 

They fell into an awkward silence. Karasuma considered asking him about the request for his aid, before ultimately rejecting it. There was a chance Karma wouldn’t know who had defied apparent orders on his behalf. Even if he did, it wasn’t something  _ Karasuma  _ needed to know.

He let it rest. 

It was Karma who finally broke it again.

“You’re still here.”

“Yes?” Karasuma raised an eyebrow. “Did you want me to leave?”

“No, I mean-” Karma looked him in the eyes, his expression deliberately deadened to hide… something. “You never really left, did you?”

Ah.

“No.” 

Karma nodded to himself slowly, before refocusing on Karasuma.

“Why? It’s been years. I’m not your student anymore. Why bother?”

For a time, Karasuma grappled with the question, wondering how best to answer.

Finally, he settled for, “I guess… in some ways, it feels like you never stopped being my student.”

“That sounds like the kind of sentimental crap we’d hear from Korosensei.”

There was none of Karma’s trademark scorn present in his tone, instead there was a sort of wistfulness that Karasuma didn’t think he had ever heard from this particular student.

Something stirred in Karasuma’s chest at the painful reminder. It had been more than seven years since Korosensei’s death and yet… it never really went away did it? At least not all of it. 

And if he, the assassin, still felt it, how much worse had it been for the kids?

Korosensei had touched them all, in more ways than one. 

“He left his mark on all of us, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Karma agreed and something passed over his face. Karasuma thought it might have been grief. 

“Listen,” Karasuma uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, speaking before he could think the better of it, “if you’re ever in the area, you should come to see Irina and I. We’d love to have you over for dinner.”

He hadn’t discussed the idea with her, it was true, but he was certain she wouldn’t mind. Likely, if Karma did take him up on his offer

Karma blinked once in surprise, like what Karasuma had just offered was something so far beyond what he expected that he wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly. 

“Just think about it,” he said, reassuring him. “I mean it.”

* * *

Karasuma never forgot his offer in the time that followed afterwards, but the months went on and he wondered if Karma did. He had meant it, but he wondered if Karma knew that.

He tried not to be disappointed. 

So when the doorbell rang, several months later, he was half-surprised to find Karma standing there on the mat.

“Hey, Teach.” He smiled slyly and held up the basket he had brought with him. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

It only took a moment for Karasuma to return his smile, stepping back and holding the door enough for him to enter.    
“Of course not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever be over Korosensei's death? No, no, I will not. I knew it was coming, I knew, and I still don't think I've cried harder over a manga death.  
> If there are any missed typos or inconsistencies or if it feels rushed- gosh, I really, really hope it doesn't feel rushed- I'm sorry.


End file.
